There’s a new app connecting people who want to make a baby.

 

The Just a Baby App pitch says it can match you with other people who want to make babies, in both traditional and not-so-traditional ways. It can also help you find someone that might need your help to have a baby.

The app is free, you can log in with your Facebook profile, enter a few basic details, male, female or representing and organisation, then what you have to offer and a short description of “your story, your vision” and in moments, you are on your way.

From there, it’s very Tinder-like.

 

Swipe right. Swipe left.

Now, given my extremely limited exposure to Tinder, I was wondering why there were so many men on the app … then it clicked, they were the only matches to me based on the profile I'd entered!   

One 27 year-old lists his story and vision as “let’s do this!”  I say hang on a minute buddy!!!  Have you thought this through? What about the implications for the future of this child. And you?

It’s never “just a baby”.

Perhaps that’s just me being very old fashioned. It’s true, the face of the modern family has changed and takes on many forms. And, there are plenty of people out there desperately want a child and would make wonderful parents while on the other hand there are people popping babies out who seriously should not be allowed to. You can call me old-fashioned on that one. Nothing much angers me more than parents of abused and unwanted children.

Just A Baby was created by Australians Paul Ryan and Gerard Edwards to help people find sperm donors, surrogates or even partners. It was launched in Australia earlier this year at the Sydney Mardi Gras and has subsequently been released in the UK and the United States.

"The whole idea of having a perfect, heterosexual long-term relationship wasn't the reality for a lot of people," Ryan said about his findings when he hit his mid-thirties, started thinking about having a child and discovering his friends were in the same situation. "And, there didn't seem to be a Plan B that was openly talked about."

So, he partnered with co-founder Gerard Edwards, to create his own Plan B: Just-a-Baby.

Speaking to NBC, co-creator Ryan said he was inspired to make the app after noticing “so much anxiety among [his] friends” when they thought about the difficulties associated with having children. The app was his attempt to “rid the stigma around trying alternative approaches”.

The app has already acquired around 4,000 users who have started “matching up and sharing great stories about starting families,” said Ryan.

"One of our goals is to address the stigma around alternative parenting models."

"There are people who have been sperm donors in the past and are happy to do it again, as well as gay and lesbian couples," explains Ryan of some of the people who have already registered.

The feedback on the app has been mostly positive. "Many have said it's great to have this tangible place to go, to come and find a solution, and be among like-minded people," Ryan says. "A place where you can come and start a conversation."

A married couple from Victoria, are already using the app in search of a surrogate.

As much as the wife would love to carry a baby and experience a pregnancy herself, her medical team have "flat out said no ... It's just too risky."

So far the couple has had one potential match they have chatted with.

 

What about the family law?

One 35-year-old male says, “Here seeing what it’s all about thinking may help people in need but want no contact whatsoever to child if I go ahead”.

How can he guarantee that’s going to be the case?

Perhaps he can't!

The app strongly recommends, though not very comprehensively, that “you, and anyone else involved, including spouses, partners or intended parents, seek independent legal advice (relevant to your country) prior to conception. Surrogacy and donor laws vary from country to country”.

Leading Australian surrogacy lawyer Stephen Page recently said in an interview with Essential Baby that Just a Baby users are embarking on a huge undertaking, one requiring diligence and care.

He said you need to consider how to minimise risk before entering into what could be a life-long decision. "You do that through getting legal advice, having counselling, and meeting the person."

"There are nine systems of law in Australia concerning this area and they're not necessarily consistent," said Page, highlighting that Just a Baby's founders have been careful to ensure the app complies with the law.

"We have laws in our country that mean egg and sperm donors and surrogates can only do it on an altruistic basis," Page said, explaining that there are also laws around advertising for surrogates in certain states.

More specifically, Page advised, "If you've got a donor type case, if you are going to have a known donor I'd recommend specific fertility counselling and that they also have a sperm donor agreement – one that's been properly drafted by a lawyer, to set out clearly what everyone wants."

 

There's a real need for this app

Page believes there's a need for Just a Baby in Australia, adding that he's often asked by clients how to go about finding donors or surrogates.

"There is a shortage of surrogates, egg donors and sperm," he says. "There's an absolute need for something like this for people to get connected."

He has a very clear message though for anyone planning to sign up with the app, "Anyone who engages with this app just needs to take care, minimise risks and make sure the person they connect with is the right person for them and their child," he said.

Do you have thoughts on this subject? Leave your comments below.

WATCH: Interview with Founder, Paul Ryan on Sunrise morning television.

Published by, Divorce Resource